The Rubber Tree Plant
by Gage93
Summary: A character piece.  Everything in parallel.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **A character piece, inspired by the Beatles, _Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End _melody from the Album, _Abbey Road._

I've made the decision to place this in present tense, which I am not at all sure of, but the choice was stylistic. Let me know what you think.

**Disclaimer:** Still not mine.

**Spoilers: **_Nesting Dolls, One to Go_, hints at others.

**The Rubber Tree Plant**

_Prologue:_

In the hours surrounding dusk, when light diminishes and, on a clear night, only the stars illuminate the sky, an egret sweeps over the deep blue pacific. Above, the sky is brilliant, but so is the ocean below, calm for the moment, dark, deep, tranquil. The egret passes over the rocks jutting above the surface of the water. Waves lap at the rocks, and though it is calm, the occasional wave collides. The cool spray of salt water catches the egret, bestowing upon it a brief shower.

The egret lifts slightly and glides across the beach. Below, the sand is dark, barely visible but for the light of the stars and half moon. The egret continues on, gliding over the beach and ocean, passing around the point, following the inlet, soaring along the coastline until the lights of a small town come into vision. The egret will pan across the houses and let the muffled whispers, carried by the wind, beckon, but it will not continue into the town. It will choose the peace and tranquility of the shore rather than the peace and tranquility of the town on that calm night.

In a mid sized house, two levels high, a child lies on her bed, curled on her side. One arm lays curled beneath her, hand tucked into her pillow. The other hand lay flat upon the pillow, dainty fingers splayed just in front of her dainty face.

The blankets are bunched up at the foot of the bed, and so is the bed sheet. The child lay only in her nightgown, the bottom hem ending just above the knee. She shivers in the cool night air, but does not move to pull her blankets up. Instead, the palm lying flat before her reaches down to tug her nightgown over her knees.

It is difficult to tell whether the child is awake or asleep. It is difficult even, to tell the age of the child. Something in the way she lays curled and not moving, the way her palm sweeps back and forth over her pillow, the way she looks both so young and so old in parallel, makes it difficult to tell anything.

Her eyes are closed, but maybe, perhaps, they are closed a little too tightly. They are concealed, so whether or not they have yet to become haunted will remain unknown.

The child shivers again and the hand lifts. For a moment it looks as though she is going to tug her nightgown back over her knees, but the hand stops, hovers above her pillow just before her mouth and plucks something from the air. Her tiny, delicate fist digs into her pillow case and when it retreats, her hand is no longer fisted.

The child's arm bunches the pillow case beneath her head, tucking in the edges of the pillow case and shielding them against the bed. Then, her hand smoothes back over. A sigh escapes, the child shivers and the small hand's movement is not yet finished. It seems restless, smoothing over the pillow. The delicate fingers crawl slowly over the pillow, curling over a corner. Her head lifts, nearly imperceptibly, and the pillow inches down. The small head of messy curls falls to the flat mattress below and the pillow is tucked into the child's curled embrace, clutched to her chest.


	2. I

_I_

Snatching up wishes and dreams was a nightly ritual for Sara as a child. She was not sure when it began. She was about six the first time, but perhaps it was earlier, or perhaps even later; she does not remember.

She does remember how she would physically try to grab hold of each hope or wish or dream, close it in her fist, and stuff it into her pillow for safe keeping. She remembers closing up the pillow case, tucking in the edges, sealing the opening and clutching it against her chest so that the dream would not escape and disappear into the air.

At first her wishes were simple and seemingly innocent enough.

_I wish mom was a better cook._

_I wish Ritchie didn't cause quite so much trouble._

_I wish I didn't have to change for gym class._

_I wish I could just learn._

She did not wish for much more, knew not much else to wish for. At night she tucked those dreams deep into her pillow, waited for the noises down the stairs to end, and slept.

In the afternoons after school got out, she would walk along the shore, watching the tide come in. The waves would crash and break upon the rock and she would shudder at the violence of it. The ocean seemed two things to her, calm, and peaceful at one moment, devastating and violent at another. Her life seemed two lives running parallel, calm and peaceful, devastating and violent.

Her mother seemed two persons, so strong and yet, so weak, unbreakable but fragile, stormy, though sensitive. She thought her mother very intelligent, but her father called her mother stupid, or worse, crazy. She knew her mother did not want to get hit, but seemed to spur her father on. Her mother invited it more than Sara ever thought to. She knew the sting of her father's slap upon her mother's face because she had felt it herself, just as she felt her mother's slap upon herself as well, only she never, ever tried to incite it. Unlike her mother, being the cause of her father's anger was always, always, purely by accident. Being the cause of her mother's anger always seemed random.

She remembers her father's frustration, how her father would pass that frustration on, pass on the anger and the despair and the fear. She remembers her mother passing on anger and despair and fear as well. She also remembers curling into her mother's arms and feeling so safe and so warm at once. She remembers tucking her gangly limbs into her mother's lap and chest and embrace. She remembers her mother's soft voice singing her the Beatles as she tucked her in.

"_Sleep pretty darling, do not cry  
And__I will sing a lullaby."_

She remembers trying to tuck her mother's voice into her pillow too.


	3. II

_II_

Her pillow is the one item she takes from foster home to foster home. The contents of it are sacred, not to be taken, not to be released. The pillow has become heavier since leaving her home, not only filled with dreams and hopes, but also with secrets. The weight of her life, of discovering her life is not, has not been like all the others, is too great a weight for her to carry and so she buries it in her pillow, stuffs it amongst her wishes and hopes and keeps it tight to her breast so that nothing will leak out, so that nothing could be known.

It takes two years for her mother to become declared fit to stand trial. In two years and three homes, the secrets have accumulated and the wishes have diminished. Though the wishes have diminished, the ones she dares have become more important. She remembers visiting her mother in an institution and wishing the smell was one more stench she could banish, just as she continues to wish she could banish the scent of copper and of other things from her memory.

She does not wish to understand what happened, or why it happened, not yet. She does not wish for her father to return; that is not possible. To wish for the return of her mother seems too great and too overwhelming for the moment, and so, she does not wish for that either. She wishes people would stop looking at her the way they do. She wishes she could not hear the whispers of the other children. She wishes she could still hear her mother's voice singing the Beatles. She wishes the haunted look would leave her eyes, but knows that no matter how much she stuffs and conceals in her pillow, the look is still there. She wishes she understood normal.

Her mother's rage, the timing of it, the number of stab wounds, the violence of the action has been entrenched into her mind. It has also denied her mother's lawyer an argument for acquittal. The words, self defense are thrown around, but not seriously, as the timing of her mother's action is off. The jury grants the plea for temporary insanity, but her mother is no longer insane, or at least medicated enough not to be in that state, and will have to serve out the rest of her sentence in a minimum security facility. It seems absurd, given the label her mother now carries, but the sentence is given, none-the-less. There is something in the trial that is not said, but Sara cannot remember what it is.

When her mother's trial is concluded and her mother enters prison, Sara enters a new home. She'll live in two more before she graduates. In those years, Sara learns not to wish for an escape, but focuses her dreams on her school work. People still know she lives in a foster home, but her past is tucked away and she can focus on school.

She is intelligent and quick to grasp concepts and hypotheticals. Something about her life has given her the ability to understand things the other students cannot. She understands force and momentum, the disruption of stability, the addition of foreign agents and reactions. She understands that when forces collide, energy has to go elsewhere. She has known what is feels to be in the path of that redirected energy. She understands so much, perhaps too much. There is comfort in seeing a puzzle for a puzzle, in understanding the nature of reaction, of knowing the outcome before it occurs. Predictability brings her peace. Her intelligence, her understanding, gives her options and can lead to a more favorable outcome.

The wishes are still there, but they are not as active. She doesn't physically try to grasp onto each dream anymore, knowing thought is a concept and not something tangible. The dreams are still tucked away, mingling with her nightmares, but now she focuses on the tangible. A degree is tangible, or at least the certificate of one is. The letter awarding a scholarship is tangible. The paper she writes her valedictorian speech on is tangible.

At times she lets her mind take over or turn off because it is all she can do. It is all she can do the first time she has sex. It's unplanned and takes her by surprise. The alcohol has dulled so much, but not the pain. She lies, clutching blades of grass between her fingers, staring past his shoulder, feeling his weight upon her, smelling alcohol and sweat, and clutching her eyes closed when the pain makes it past her barriers. She wants to focus on the tangible, but the tangible hurts. She focuses on memory but memory, even filtered, hurts as well. He becomes one more thing she has to bury.


	4. III

_III_

She doesn't start dreaming again, really dreaming until after college, after grad school, after she's entered the work force and been in it for a couple of years. She's dreamed of truth and understanding and justice, but more than dreamed, she's actively sought. Dreaming does not forward her cause. Working towards it does.

Her wishes reenter at a seminar. He's a PhD. _Dr. Gilbert Grissom_. She listens to him lecture and wishes and dreams spring unbidden. They flow like never before, in multitudes, filtering into her pillow until she is sure there is no room left. Still, the dreams and wishes enter and stay. They linger just below her consciousness, or just above. They are so close to the root of her soul, she is unsure and unaware of where exactly they linger. She knows she dreams of him, but how much she needs that dream, she has yet to realize. The need will burn in her and consume her before she is really aware of it happening.

She lets a couple of the wishes escape and they are either fulfilled or rejected. He exchanges information and an offer of friendship, but nothing more. He has to return to his home in Las Vegas. She thinks she may have to bury him too, but she can't. Something about him refuses to be buried, and so she can only yearn for him.

He calls her to Las Vegas and asks her to stay and a few more of those dreams escape. One by one they die. Her job weighs her down and more has to be buried. Soon her dreams, her wishes, still lingering, still there, always there, are pushed to the back. They are packed in beneath everything else she's buried. Her nightmares, her failures, her disappointments, her ghosts, take up most of her space. She wants to release something, but can't. Wishes released evaporate. Secrets released cause an explosion. Everything has to remain buried and so it does. Her pillow is full and lumpy with all of its stuffed contents and she can't sleep. She can barely lift it anymore. It is too hard to bury everything, to carry everything, and she wonders if she will sink beneath the weight.


	5. IV

_IV_

She likes the desert, likes how the wind sweeps over it and cleans it. She likes to go out and let the wind sweep through her. She doesn't even mind how the sand blowing across the desert stings in her eyes. It is worth it to see the wind swept floor, the ripples in the sand like ripples in the ocean. It is smooth and clean and vast. Blemishes disappear. In the desert, she sees a blank slate, tabula rasa. She finds comfort in nothingness.

Vegas is still her reality and so are her nightmares. So is her past. A little spills out and the reaction is explosive. Elements in opposition, the reaction is almost predictable. What isn't predictable is the entrance of another foreign element and his reaction.

She looks up at him from her chair. He stares down at her, waiting for an answer. No matter how much she tells him to leave it alone, he won't. She wants to keep everything buried, but his demands make it impossible. It enters her mind, and tears try to prick at her eyes, but she won't let them show.

"Sara…" His expression softens, but his resolve is still there.

His resolve is untoppable and she wonders how he does it. This, everything, burns her. It pushes her down and she cannot stop sinking below it, while he can still carry on. He is like an ant. He carries the weight of each case like a diligent worker. So much is placed upon his shoulders and he shoulders it. More weight is added and he carries it like it is his duty. He does not let the burden show. He carries the heavy load from one place to another, from climax to conclusion, too late to carry from the beginning. His steps are slow and methodical. He will not drop anything. Every once in awhile the strain may become visible, but still, he carries on.

She shakes her head and thinks that this is one weight he cannot carry. She's immovable. _It's too heavy. I'm too heavy. You cannot carry this weight._ She knows that telling him will throw the weight upon him and he will drop it. It is too personal. He does not know what he is asking to shoulder. Still, he wants to and she wishes he could. She wishes he could be her stabilizer, thought it was possible at one time, but knows that he cannot. He will sink them both.

There is a standoff and he wins. It is too hard not to let something leak when he looks at her, when his eyes are imploring and resolute, when his eyes promise not to let her fall. Even though she does not believe the promise, she cannot help but sigh and take a breath and let a secret drop. She is vulnerable to him and he knows it. She knows he won't back down, that his mind is fixed, that his resolve will not waver. No one has offered to shoulder her load before and she succumbs.

The details, as they escape, are fragmented. She can only remember in bits, and her memory brings them back at random. Her narrative does not come in any coherent form or manner. The details escape as she remembers them and there is so much her mind will not let her remember.

She does not remember why she lay on her bed so long, curled and shivering in her nightgown, only remembers leaving the blankets off on purpose, waiting for things to settle and for her mother to come up and check on her, to tuck her in and leave her feeling safe and warm. She remembers the wish she plucked from the air, remembers wishing it were the night before, when things were quiet and her mother hovered in the doorway as her father tucked her in, kissed her forehead and called her his sweetheart. She remembers holding that wish to her chest.

She does not remember when it became silent. She does not remember why she remained in her bed so long after the silence, or why she only began her slow descent down the stairs after the police arrived. She does not remember the passage of that time. Everything before seeing the police is a mystery. She has buried too much, lost so much to that burial. So much of that night will never be known, not even to her.

She remembers the smell, can still feel it in her mouth and nostrils. She remembers a young police officer throwing up at the bottom of the stairwell. She remembers her mother's eyes, staring at her or through her. She remembers the blood.

She breaks down as she lets out her secrets and she does not feel lighter, not until he takes her hand. She'd passed on the weight and though his look still promises to carry it, she still does not believe him. He carries it for one night. Her pillow becomes lighter. She sleeps.

Letting out her secrets has also let out a wish and the wish evaporates. He's still holding her upright, but drifting into someone else and she feels the disappointment and the heartbreak fall onto her. She loves him, but knows the weight is too much. He cannot continue to carry it, cannot possibly choose to, but knowing so does not bring her any comfort. She still yearns for him with an intensity that overwhelms her. Only now, she's exposed to him and that makes everything infinitely easier and infinitely harder. Her life is still in parallel.

Still, he holds steady and though it appears he's drifted away, she finds he's drifted right into her. He lays her bare, strips her bare and sits next to her nude body, tracing his fingers over her skin. She stares up at him and wonders if he's tracing over invisible scars. She wonders if he knows how many he is healing. His fingers drag lightly over her stomach. She gazes at him, barely breathing, watching him stare down at her, wondering at the awe in his gaze. She should be self conscious, but isn't. She yearns for his body, but is content to lie below him and let his touch travel her. This is every wish tucked away, releasing into the air, not evaporating, but hovering and blooming into existence.

She shivers below his light touch. His touch becomes more purposeful and she squirms and moves beneath his palm. She presses into his hand, delights in the feel of it gliding over her, moves with him, arching, curling, touching.

She lifts her body to sit before him. Her hand moves along his side, over the coarse fabric of his shirt, up and back down. She grasps the fabric and tugs at it. Her hand snakes under and moves over his skin. He shivers and she smiles, kneeling before him to pull the shirt from his pants. Her other hand falls to skin and her thumbs brush over him. His hands move to the small of her back and she's pulled to him. He kisses her and she inches forward and begins to release each button on his shirt. He strips and she lays waiting. He lies beside her and lets her fingers map out his body. His mouth wanders over her. They move together and she does not need to focus on the tangible because she can feel it along every inch of her skin. Her synapses are firing. Her body is quivering. She has never felt anything more powerful.

His gaze bores into hers. His name is on her lips. They move and release and shudder and his arms pull her to his chest, curling her into his embrace. He holds her, kisses her shoulder, and she has never felt so safe and so warm. She wishes she could hold onto this feeling, to have it day after day and never know the pain of its loss. Her hand reaches out and plucks a wish from the air, holding it in her fist. She falls asleep with it still tucked there. When she wakes, her hand opens and the wish disappears into the air.


	6. V

_V_

Day after day they join and sleep. Her wishes float around her, seemingly fulfilled at every turn. The brunt of her wishes realized, only secrets and ghosts are left. At times she wakes sweaty and out of breath from a nightmare. His arms fold around her. His voice, soft and husky with sleep, drifts into her ear.

"_Sleep little darling, do not cry  
__And I will sing a lullaby."_

She wishes it could last and it does, until secrets and ghosts come out and everything becomes too much. She hates the desert for the way it has exposed her. She looks at him, sees so much beauty and is afraid she will mar it. She becomes afraid to drop any more weight onto him.

Time and distance add up and she knows he cannot support everything she's thrown at him. It is too much for any man and far too much for a man supporting the weight he already is, the weight of so many others and so much else. She releases him of the weight and does not know where it falls because the only weight she feels now is the weight of him. She still can't bury him.

When she turns around and he is there, carrying everything and almost nothing, she is too stunned and too thankful to think. It is every wish she's had since leaving.

Later, lying before him, touching him, tracing his invisible scars, scars she's inflicted, and watching them heal, visibly, beneath her touch, she asks, "What happened?"

He smiles softly, his hand running along her arm. "I faltered."

He may again, she knows, but she also knows he will pick it up and shoulder it again. He will carry her weight. Her wishes have not evaporated. They've traveled the globe and seeped into him. She curls on the bed, facing him, shivering beneath his touch, blanket and sheet at her feet, too warm to be beneath in the humidity of the rainforest and the warmth of him.

_Fin_


End file.
